Star's quiet life in Fort Lauderdale is shattered by drive-by shooting

Rap star Rick Ross was recovering Monday from the shock of dodging bullets in his Rolls-Royce on Las Olas Boulevard in downtown Fort Lauderdale.

But his expensive car didn’t fare so well after the early-hours gunplay. And nor did the landmark Floridian restaurant, which had a window pierced by a bullet.

Ross was headed in the direction of his home on the luxurious Seven Isles about 5 a.m. Monday when, according to Fort Lauderdale police, his silver 2011 Rolls-Royce was targeted by a barrage of bullets near the corner of Las Olas Boulevard and Southeast 15th Avenue. None of the bullets found its mark, but Ross’ car ended up running into a two-story apartment building behind the Floridian. The suspects remain at large, police said.

Ross and a female companion, Shateria L. Moragne-el, 28, a fashion stylist and designer, of Davie, were uninjured, as was the apartment tenant, Beth Balk, a Floridian waitress.

“I’ve never seen anything like this happen,” Balk said. “It’s quiet on Las Olas, certainly on a Sunday night.”

A few hours earlier, Ross celebrated his 37th birthday with a performance at Liv nightclub at the Fontainebleau Hotel on Miami Beach. No incident was reported there, according to a hotel spokeswoman.

One of the bullets appeared to have entered a front window of the Floridian, a 24-hour diner where the city’s politicians often drop in. They include Mayor Jack Seiler, who was not dining there Monday morning.

“It’s absolutely one of the most-unexpected activities to happen on Las Olas and hopefully it will be for the next 10 years,” Seiler said of the event that briefly shut down the heart of the city’s picturesque byway. “That’s my goal, that we don’t see something like this happen again. I don’t ever want to hear of a shooting anywhere in the city.”

Calling Fort Lauderdale “a wonderful place to be,” he said, “there will probably be more news stories today about our perfect weather than this shooting. I suspect nobody is going to change their plans or that this will impact tourism one bit.”

Seiler said he did not previously know who Ross was and was unfamiliar with his music.

“I had to ask around and learn about how big he is in the industry,” Seiler said.

Ross certainly is big. He lives in a $4.7 million waterfront mansion — adorned with a Rolls-Royce and a yacht named “City of Miami” — far off the hip-hop grid, on a bucolic cul-de-sac at the end of a maze of family-friendly streets, where the annual Halloween trick-or-treating begins with a send-off by a high-school marching band.

“That doesn’t surprise me. That’s Rick,” said Derrick Baker, a Ross confidante and program director at the Miami-based rap-oriented radio station WEDR, also known as 99 Jamz. “Once he steps away from the music, he’s a family guy. Real chill.”

If there is a theme that evolves from conversations with Broward County residents who have crossed paths with Ross, who also owns a $1 million home in Davie, it is that he’s not the menacing figure seen in many rap videos.

“There are no complaints about him as a neighbor,” said a Seven Isles neighbor who did not want to be identified. “He was friendly, always waved and slowed down for the kids.”

The neighbor said she would see Ross frequently walking in the morning with a woman, getting exercise. The Seven Isles home is listed under his mother’s name.

Baker said he has been friends with Ross, working on the rapper’s education and charity projects, since 2005. Ross has been a frequent guest at the station’s Hollywood studios, and did a half-hour on the air on Friday. Baker said he was “upbeat, very happy and excited” about his birthday and the imminent release of his sixth album, “Mastermind.”

It is at that intersection of commerce and street cred that bad blood has been spilled between Ross and his rivals, most prominently 50 Cent. That rapper-actor, born Curtis Jackson, has made no secret of his belief that the urban-thug image of the Carol City-raised Rick Ross, born William Roberts, is manufactured.

“Hahaha fat boy hit the building?” 50 Cent wrote on his Twitter account on Monday. “Lol it looks staged to me. No hole’s in da car.”

WEDR’s Baker said record sales may be at the root of 50 Cent’s animosity, calling it “an on-wax feud,” and laughed at the suggestion that Ross would stage a shooting to boost his reputation.

“Could this be an elaborate way to sell albums? I don’t think Rick would go down that route, especially with someone else in the car,” Baker said. “And you don’t mess up a nice Rolls like that.”